Tuesday, 28 April 2015

Knee-deep in buntings

Chongming Dongtan National Nature Reserve is
located at the seaward end of Chongming Island in the mouth of the Yangtze
River in China. With my third visit in
little over a year it’s beginning to feel like home from home. The ‘Bird
Habitat Optimisation Project’ we have been involved with is progressing at
speed. Twenty-seven km of 8 m high sea wall and a series of sluices
(water gates) have now been completed. The early stages of the habitat creation
are now underway and we are back on site to check all is going to plan.

The project aims firstly to eradicate, by
cutting and flooding, the invasive non-native Cord-grass Spartina alternifolia that has spread across 1,600 ha of mudflats
and secondly, to create habitats to support the priority species of waders,
wildfowl, cranes and reedbed specialists such as the Reed Parrotbill, within
the 2,500 ha project area. Wide channels and meandering creeks are being
created to carry water around the site. Nesting and roosting islands are being
created in lagoon habitats.Open pools
and creeks are being formed in the reedbeds. Some of the creeks are being formed by carving
into the mud with high pressure water hoses and the resultant liquid slurry is
pumped into embanked areas to settle out and form the islands. The completed scheme will have 425 ha of
reedbed, 1000 ha of brackish lagoons and 160 ha of saltmarsh. Water will enter
from the Yangtze on high tides and flow through the site around huge perimeter
canals 40m wide and 4m deep.

The site is a sea of mud as around 50
excavators and 200 workers attempt to create the new habitats out of the Spartina dominated marsh. All
around, migration is in full swing. Our first morning was cloudy and wet with
birds leaping out of every bush. Buntings were everywhere; Little,
Yellow-browed, Chestnut-eared, Black-faced and Tristram's were trying to
out-'tick' each other. Red-flanked Bluetails and Olive-backed Pipits lurked
under the trees. It's tough working here
but someone's got to do it.

Hoardes of swallows feed around the excavators,
A trio of Reed Buntings; Common, Pallas's and Japanese, flit around the
vegetation, and Red-throated Pipits call overhead every minute or so. Mongolian Plovers, Terek Sandpipers and
Turnstones dodge the diggers in the muddy pools.The site continues to turn up surprises, not
least the flock of 3 Long-billed Dowitchers feeding in one pool.

A grizzled old ecologist/birder, usually to be found roaming around the Lee Valley and occasionally further afield. Fortunate to be involved in the management of some of the UK's finest nature reserves and always looking for ways of improving them for birds.